Time travel is risky, and love requires caution

The short sixteen words made Bei Huang silent. After a while, he asked Du Jingshan, who was still lying on the ground:

"What else did Qi'er say?"

"The Seventh Princess said that if the poison is investigated, we can help, but if it is not investigated, we will not blame you. The Seventh Princess also said that if you need to live, you can marry, and if you need to die, you can hide."

Twenty words made Bei Huang's eyes red. Now it seemed that all the children in the house were not as good as Qi'er. He did love her in vain, but it was a pity that she was a girl.

He quickly calmed himself down, arranged for someone to escort Du Jingshan out of the palace, and ordered that no one be allowed to disturb him.

Faced with the sudden change, he needs time and space to calm down.

What Qi'er said was not without reason. If the Ninth Prince wanted to rebel, holding you hostage would definitely be the best strategy. He had thought about it before, but some things were difficult to do, and even the ruler of a country often felt powerless.

The queen is the granddaughter of Cai Yunsheng, the prime minister of two dynasties. She has been an official for many years and has a deep-rooted influence in the court. If it weren't for Prime Minister Cai's full support, he would not have become the final winner in the battle for the crown prince.

But everything has two sides. After he ascended the throne, Prime Minister Cai became proud of his achievements. In addition, his granddaughter was the current queen, so he looked down on everyone. He often acted arbitrarily and nepotism in government affairs. Half of the people in the court were his cronies.

The Northern Emperor put a lot of effort into planning countermeasures for this, but he was often resolved with little effort by the shrewd Prime Minister Cai.

He knew that some things could not be rushed, so if he couldn't deal with it head-on, he would take a roundabout approach. So he started with the harem, and even if Prime Minister Cai had a long arm, he couldn't interfere in the family affairs between him and his wives and concubines.

He conferred the title of Chen Fei on Bi Ziwei, and never concealed his love for her, either in public or in private.

He almost ignored the empress and rarely even set foot in Chunhui Palace where the empress lived.

Prime Minister Cai advised him many times, but he just responded superficially.

He didn't like the queen in the first place, and now he disliked her even more because of her mother's family.

In order to prevent the Cai family from continuing to be proud, the Northern Emperor would never allow the Queen to be pregnant with a prince. And the Cai family would not allow other concubines to give birth to princes. The miscarriages of concubines and the death of princes in the harem that year were closely related to this.

Everyone in the court knew that the Northern Emperor favored Concubine Chen and neglected the Empress, who had not given birth to a child for many years. Officials always knew how to look down on others and how to adapt to the situation. Gradually, they stopped trying to curry favor with Prime Minister Cai and the Empress, and instead sent their female relatives to the palace to curry favor with Concubine Chen.

In Beiwei, Concubine Chen had neither the support of her maternal family nor the advice of aides, nor any connections with the famous families. Suddenly, she became the center of attention in the harem, but Concubine Chen did not want to be in the limelight, so she simply closed the palace gates and refused to see anyone except the emperor.

Seeing Concubine Chen like this, he doted on her even more without restraint.

But this brought disaster to Concubine Chen and her motherland.

Not long after, an epidemic broke out in Yahe State. He wanted to send people to provide relief, but was obstructed by officials headed by Prime Minister Cai in the court. Under his willful will, although he sent several waves of people, they were not sure whether they were incompetent or intentional, and they failed to reverse the situation in Yahe State. In the end, Yahe State was left with nine out of ten houses empty and people were in mourning.

He didn't know how to face the Concubine Chen, so he blocked the news of the Crow Kingdom from the harem. At first, he just didn't want her to worry about the Crow Kingdom, and wanted to wait until the epidemic in the Crow Kingdom eased before telling her. But the subsequent developments made it increasingly difficult for him to speak up.

He often avoided her on the pretext of being busy with official duties, but she was indifferent to his neglect, which made him very angry. Later, he began to treat her equally, staying in the palaces of the queen and other concubines. He thought she would be jealous, but she remained unmoved and treated him as usual. Facing someone who didn't care about him at all, he didn't even have the courage to be angry.

Later, the affairs of the Crow Kingdom could not be concealed and were known by the Concubine Chen. For the first time, she took the initiative to come to him and asked him why, but he was speechless.

What should he say? Say that he was incompetent, that the ruler of a country was controlled by his subjects? Say that because of his favor, she brought disaster upon her country? Or that he treated her equally just to stop her from becoming the target of public criticism? Or that he regretted using her to attack the Cai family, and regretted not telling her about the epidemic in Yahe Country as soon as possible?

No matter what he said, he could not save the fate of the Yahe Kingdom, and he knew how important the Yahe Kingdom was to Concubine Chen.

His indifference made her faint in front of him, but the imperial physician diagnosed that she was pregnant with their child. He didn't know whether to be happy or sad.

When Concubine Chen asked to be sent to the cold palace, he agreed, because he felt that the cold palace was safer and would give her a chance to give birth to their child safely. Whether it was the cold palace's access control or food, he was extremely careful not to give others an opportunity to take advantage of it.

When Qi'er was born, he seemed indifferent and even disgusted. In fact, he had secretly asked the Empress Dowager to adopt Qi'er, and even named Qi'er. God knows how much he wanted to hold their daughter in his arms. Later, he did not dare to show excessive concern for Qi'er, for fear of causing trouble for Qi'er.

He wanted to bring Concubine Chen out of the cold palace so that the three of them could live happily together, but he knew that it was not the right time yet. Prime Minister Cai had just passed away at that time. He wanted to wait until Prime Minister Cai's wings were completely clipped before personally bringing her back from the cold palace to be his queen.

But what he finally waited for was the news of her death. And the saddest thing is that although Prime Minister Cai died, the family power still exists. He has worked hard until now to balance the relationship between all parties and no longer have to look at the faces of the ministers.

Bei Huang's recollections came to an abrupt end, and he carefully considered the sixteen words Qi'er had given him, "Cherish life, stay away from the Queen, if she has any ulterior motives, it is best to seize the crown prince."

Holding the crown prince hostage, haha, the value of holding the crown prince hostage is that he must die, it seems he needs to make plans early and be prepared for both offense and defense.

He thought for a moment, picked up the brush on the table, and finished writing the letter of patriotism that he had been going to write to Ximo. It didn't matter even if Ximo didn't agree to the Sixth Princess marrying in his stead. At least this way and that could buy him some time, and he could use this time to do something.

Although the Northern Emperor had made up his mind, he still asked the officials to discuss Ximo's decision to choose a date to marry the Seventh Princess and the Seventh Princess's long-term illness. First, he wanted to see the different reactions of the officials and how many of them were puppets of the Ninth Prince or the Cai family. Second, he wanted to buy time and let them argue for a few days.

Not long after the court session ended, the Queen came to see the Northern Emperor as expected. She asked him about the Seventh Princess's condition and said she would go to the Bulao Pavilion to visit her in person.

Of course, the Northern Emperor did not let her go to the Bu Lao Pavilion to disturb Princess Qi's "recuperation".

During the year that the Seventh Princess was "sick", the Queen had visited her often, and on several occasions she had even tried to break into the Bulao Pavilion directly. Fortunately, the palace servants and guards he had arranged had stopped her. However, this also aroused the Queen's suspicion more and more, and she often asked him about the Seventh Princess for no reason.

Qi'er was poisoned before, it's not that he didn't suspect the queen, but he couldn't investigate further at that time, he didn't want to expose Qi'er's true condition and whereabouts, nor did he want to alert the enemy. And even if he found out, the queen would just be a scapegoat, he couldn't touch the queen, after all, the foundation of the Cai family was still there, if he dealt with the queen, I'm afraid there would be another open and secret struggle in the court, which would provide another opportunity for the Ninth Prince.

The Ninth Prince's move of using the Queen was really hard for him to handle. But then again, a couple should be of one mind, but now not only are they in appearance but also in spirit, they are even bait for outsiders, which really shows the human nature under power.